Why aren't all animals becoming smarter?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Captain Kremmen, Aug 29, 2007.

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  1. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I meant the kind of mapping that allows cells to 'know' where to start off, and what cells to produce, regrowing a limb (amphibian), as if each individual cell has got its own number. I guess we're talking about the same thing though, it just has been a while for me.. I can't remember all the names.
     
    Enmos, Sep 12, 2007
    #61

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  3. Billy T

    Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    How did you manage that? I annually insult them, point out their defects, (with specific references to their short comings) etc. and then against the rules call for the banning of someone (Billy T) for his arrogance and disrespect of the moderators.

    Yet the worst that has happened to me is someone threatened to make me a moderator if I continue that behavior. (It is my annual fun with them, at start of the new year. - I am looking forward to 1/1/08 to do it again.) Last year I set up a pole calling for the ban, and the vote was close, so probably will not do that again!

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    Billy T, Sep 12, 2007
    #62

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  5. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The maintenance of brain tissue requires a huge consumption of protein. (If you're not a ruminant that can turn cellulose into protein, and they have to spend so much time eating that cellulose that they wouldn't have much use for high intelligence.) Dogs and wolves are a single species. But over the 15,000 years since dogs chose to live in our multi-species community, they have adapted to a more scavenging and less carnivorous diet than wolves, and as a result their average brain size is smaller.
    That's a hard limit we're running up against. Human babies are born at a qualititively much more primitive stage of development than any other mammal, in order for the head to fit through the birth canal. As a result they're utterly helpless for several months after birth and continue to require extensive care and education for many years. That is quite a liability for the baby and quite a burden on the parents compared to almost all other mammals, who leave home during their first year.
    But it will be slow. As i said, it took fifteen thousand years for dogs to diverge as little as they have from wolves. It took sixty thousand years for the polar bear to diverge from the grizzly; AFAIK that's the most rapid speciation we're aware of.

    Our social and technological environment changes much too quickly for our biological evolution to keep up. We're going to have to do it with reason and learning instead of nature, which is the way we've been doing it ever since the Neolithic Revolution.
    Humans couldn't extract protein from vegetation until we learned how to cook it. (Only nuts and seeds yield their protein without cooking.) Our ancestors lost the ability to break down cellulose, probably at the same time they learned how to hunt meat. Even so, our metabolism isn't very compatible with a vegatarian diet. The life expectancy at the end of the Mesolithic Era for an adult who had survived childhood was more than 40 years. After the Neolithic (agricultural) Revolution when we became dependent on grains for nutrition, the life expectancy dropped down into the low 20s during the Roman Era. Even 150 years ago it was only in the 30s. Only the advances in the science of biology in the last century--the discovery of the role of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. in nutrition--made possible the current life expectancy of 70+ in the West.
    You said a mouthful there. We have transcended our nature and overridden our pack-social instinct, and built gigantic communities: civilization. Civilization has become an artificial organism in its own right that is extremely robust and has defied all of our seemingly concerted efforts to destroy it. It is now 10,000 years old and continues to grow both in size and capability. It's even a recursive phenomenon: civilizations have continually joined forces to become still larger super-communities, to the point that we're probably only one or two hundred years away from a single global civilization.
    It is clearly a tremendous evolutionary advantage for mammals to re-adapt to aquatic life. Warm-blooded air-breathers absolutely rule the water. In every aquatic ecological niche where a mammal or bird has reentered, for its size it is usually the apex predator. This includes those who have become completely aquatic and can no longer live on land like the cetaceans, those who can only barely function on land like seals and penguins, those who come to feed like otters and pelicans, and those who just drop in for tasty snacks like bears.

    Apparently that readaptation is a difficult process for evolution to provide because it is not common. Of all mammals only the cetaceans have completed it, and they still have vestigial floating pelvises.

    The controversial aquatic ape theory--which has been discussed at great length on SciForums if you want to go back a couple of years--suggests that when we came down out of the trees we went into the water first and hunted fish before we came back out onto the land ready to hunt zebras. That would explain the vestigial webs between our fingers and our very un-primate-like buoyancy.

    A theory I find attractive suggests that since living in a three-dimensional universe (like swimming or flying) requires your brain to develop more computing power to think in up and down rather than just front, back and sides, that may have been the stimulus for our extraordinary intelligence among all the apes. Just swinging through air between the trees got us partway there to start with.
    Personal insults against any member are a violation of the SciForums rules but the moderators have to judge whether it's serious or just wicked fun. I haven't been paying attention to you (sorry dude, you're not a linguist) but apparently you make it obvious that it's all a big joke. Just pick on S.A.M., that's what we all do.

    I personally will vote against you unless you tighten up on your spelling, so perhaps you're safe.

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    Fraggle Rocker, Sep 13, 2007
    #63

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  7. Billy T

    Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    But I like SAM* (often agree with her.) even if I wrer not dislexic, my typing would give you fits.

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    --------------------
    *May the RAM

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    be with her! (She probably knows all about the RAM - big news in India now - made the government back down.) to know more, see:
    http://www.indianexpress.com/story/216745.html
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 14, 2007
    Billy T, Sep 13, 2007
    #64
  8. P. BOOM!

    P. BOOM! Registered Senior Member

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    Squirrels must be smarter in my area. I have seen many pause at the edge of the road and look for traffic before crossing.
     
    P. BOOM!, Sep 24, 2007
    #65
  9. John99

    John99 Banned Banned

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    Just today i saw a squirrel chasing another squirrel, they were runnning around fence postings at top speed and making sharp turns, then up a tree and u-turn back down.

    I just wonder what they were thinking.
     
    John99, Sep 24, 2007
    #66
  10. spuriousmonkey

    spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    squirrels are smarter than you because they know what the other squirrel is thinking.
     
    spuriousmonkey, Sep 24, 2007
    #67
  11. Orleander

    Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Are some animals getting dumber because we breed them to be that way. I know the cows we had that were forever getting out were butchered. Can't pass on your smart gene when you're dead.
     
    Orleander, Sep 25, 2007
    #68
  12. Reiku

    Reiku Banned Banned

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    Now - please don't crucify me, because i don't know if anyone has given this scientfic response.
    Animals are NOT getting smarter because they do not have what is called, 'The Supracharasmatic nucleus,'' which is the gene responsible for human intelligence.

    Reiku
     
    Reiku, Sep 25, 2007
    #69
  13. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    So why don't animals develop the ability to think consciously ?
    I don't even believe in this question, I'm just trying to show you that your question is flawed.
     
    Enmos, Sep 25, 2007
    #70
  14. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Firstly: who says animals don't have that gene ? Proof please..
    Secondly: if humans got it, why can't animals evolve to have the gene ?

    Again, I don't believe in my own question, just trying to show you that your question is flawed.
     
    Enmos, Sep 25, 2007
    #71
  15. Reiku

    Reiku Banned Banned

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    Actually, i should have been more accurate, or you wouldn't have made the claim you made above. First of all, the gene comes in many different evolutionary aspects. Animals will have the same gene, but 1000's of years behind in evolution. The SupraC. Nucleus found in humans are actually so much more advanced, they cannot be classed in the same catogory.
     
    Reiku, Sep 25, 2007
    #72
  16. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I have seen cats doing that too

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    Enmos, Sep 25, 2007
    #73
  17. Reiku

    Reiku Banned Banned

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    Also, there are two types of major intelligence genes in the human race today. Only a handful have the superadvanced gene.
     
    Reiku, Sep 25, 2007
    #74
  18. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Right, that's my whole point. So in humans the 'same' gene has 'evolved' to be more advanced.
    Now, in light of evolution, couldn't animals also evolve to have a more advanced SupraC. Nucleus ? The answer is obviously 'yes', and the question originally was 'why hasn't it ?'
     
    Enmos, Sep 25, 2007
    #75
  19. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I am hesitant to ask which groups have the more advanced version and which not..
     
    Enmos, Sep 25, 2007
    #76
  20. spuriousmonkey

    spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    It's a bit difficult to assess how smart an animal is, but one way to measure it (on a crude level) is to compare the brain size with body weight, and you get some kind of index. You can plot this then on a logarithmic scale and you get some kind of baseline, where certain groups fall below, certain ones fall above.

    Whether a group falls above or below this baseline is entirely dependent on where you draw the baseline.

    Let's just say we take all vertebrates.

    if we take amphibians and reptiles as a baseline pretty much all other vertebrate groups tend to be above it.

    We can assume that the common ancestor of a modern reptilian and modern mammal looked very much like some sort of reptilian with a brain and body size that would hover around the modern baseline of reptilians.

    From this perspective some animals have become smarter.

    We can do the same thing for the ancestor of the primates and the modern primates. We draw a baseline for what we think is a modern representative (as in estimate) of the ancestral state, and we will see that pretty much most modern primates will lie above this baseline.

    BUT!!!

    Let's now look at it from a different perspective. Let us not compare some ancestral state, but the diversity halfway between the ancestral state and the modern state of diversity.

    Let's draw a baseline at the average 'intelligence' (brain size compared to body weight - yes, it is crude) of all primates at this point in time halfway down the line (or bush actually). Now we look a few million years later.

    Did the baseline go up if we take the average?

    Probably not!

    What happened was that some genera produced smarter (as in increased brain size compared to body weight) species, and some species went towards less intelligence.

    The recent evolution of the primate lineage is rather special. The hominids turned up. A characteristic of this lineage was a rapid (on a geological scale) increase in brain size. However, compared to other groups this trend might have been a tad bit unrepresentative, as in that it is not a common short term trend.

    Now we can answer the question:Why aren't all animals becoming smarter?
    They are!
    And at the same time all animals are also becoming stupider!

    trivia:
    I recently read that the human lineage is actually on the average decreasing its brain size.
     
    spuriousmonkey, Sep 25, 2007
    #77
  21. Reiku

    Reiku Banned Banned

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    Well... No. There appears to be a special relationship between human DNA and the developing SupraC.
     
    Reiku, Sep 25, 2007
    #78
  22. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Is this an answer to my question "couldn't animals also evolve to have a more advanced SupraC. Nucleus" ?
    If so why, according to you, is it impossible for animals to evolve this relationship ?
     
    Enmos, Sep 25, 2007
    #79
  23. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed.

    No surprises there..

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    Enmos, Sep 25, 2007
    #80
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